Comedy Writer Jeannie Gaffigan - ‘I'd Like To My Brain Tumor . . .'

The Mom Of 5 Gets Real About Her Life-changing Health Crisis And How She’ll Never Take Love For Granted Again

- Julie Jordan

As a busy working mom in New York City, Jeannie Gaffigan could easily explain away the signs: Pounding headaches and dizzy spells while shuttling her five kids with her husband, comedian Jim Gaffigan, back and forth to school and their various activities were surely just symptoms of dehydration and allergies, along with stress. It wasn’t until her kids’ pediatrician referred her to an ENT specialist in March 2017 (after Jeannie mentioned she couldn’t hear well out of her left ear) that she became at all concerned. “In retrospect, of course, I knew something wasn’t right,” says Jeannie, 49. “It was there.”

A few weeks later an MRI revealed Jeannie had a 6-cm. mass the size of a pear on her brain stem. Surgery removed the tumor, which proved to be benign—and left her bedridden with a breathing tube, unable to talk, using a feeding tube for months and struggling to keep her family’s life from being totally disrupted. Now Jeannie, who cowrote and executive-produced Jim’s 2015-16 TV Land series The Jim Gaffigan Show, is opening up about the ordeal in a new book, When Life Gives You Pears. “The truth is, that weekend I knew I had to have brain surgery, and I didn’t know what my life was going to be like afterward,” says Jeannie, sitting next to Jim in their New York City home in August. Her husband, meanwhile, had complete confidence in his wife. “This is also the person that delivered a baby and then an hour later made breakfast for everyone,” says Jim, 53. “Do you know what I mean?”